When I first heard about Rocky coming out on all major
platforms I was stunned. Being the hardcore Rocky fanatic that I am (and a proud
owner of the DVD box set I might add), I was highly anticipating this game on
most formats. A Game Boy Advance version kind of surprised me. I was worried
that the developers at Rage were putting most of their work into the console
versions and skimping out on the GBA version. Once you think about it, Rocky
does have some serious competition on the GBA. Unlike most other consoles where
all you have to worry about is just Knockout Kings, the GBA actually does have a
wealthy amount of boxing titles such as Punch King, Boxing Fever, Ready to
Rumble, and of course, Knockout Kings. Let’s see if Rocky stands out from the
bunch.

Story

Rocky loosely follows the events of all five movies. You
start from the beginning as Rocky Balboa, a Philadelphia club fighter who’s at
the bottom of the heap. Through a stroke of fate you land a lucky opportunity to
face World Heavyweight Champ, Apollo Creed. As you progress through all five
movies you’ll duel against all the other bosses from the other films such as the
ferocious Clubber Lang, the steroid-fueled Ivan Drago, and the Rocky’s old
protégé Tommy Gunn.

It seems that any boxer that had the tiniest of roles or
even a name mentioned in any of the movies is in here. You’ll notice that this
is the case with Spider Rico the bum who Balboa defeats in the beginning of the
first movie, and Union Kane the paper champion who Tommy Gunn beats in the last
film. The total roster for the GBA version of Rocky is an impressive 27 boxers.
Asides from the aforementioned combatants above, there’s another dozen generic
brawlers thrown to give the roster a little more depth.

Graphics

Remember Evander Holyfield’s Real Deal Boxing on the
Genesis? That’s what Rocky reminds me of. The in game visuals look similar to
that game where you can see the upper half of both boxers in the ring. There’s
even some nifty little pictures of the faces by the life bars at the top of the
screen that feature facial damage as the match progresses. Rage did a great job
of what they could muster out of the GBA hardware. The character models present
great representations of the counterparts from the movies. Each of the five
versions of Rocky Balboa in the game has his own little changes from
film-to-film such as the different hairstyles and boxing trunks. Apollo Creed
has his big afro, and Tommy Gunn sports the power of the mullet.

The venues are well done too, they’re nowhere near as good
as the console counterparts, but good for what Rage could manage on the GBA. For
example, you can see the stars on the mat of the arena where Rocky and Apollo
first fought in Philly. You can even see the big pin ups of Stalin when you box
against Drago in Russia. In the main single player game, there are little cut
scenes of the movies that have digitized pictures. They look all right for the
most part, and it was what I was expecting of them to do. All the animations for
your uppercuts, jabs, and everything else also look good. My only complaint with
the graphics engine is that there’s a little bit of flicker going on here and
there when the action gets too intense.

Sound

The first thing you’ll notice right away when you boot up
Rocky is the excellent midi rendition of “Gonna Fly Now,” the main theme for the
Rocky films. I and other Rocky fans will be disappointed that there isn’t any
inclusion of “Eye of the Tiger,” especially after you see that song listed on
the back of the game box. There’s several other generic background tunes during
game play that sound all right, but nothing to go bragging home about. The sound
effects stand out a little bit. The crowd will chant “Rocky” on occasion to
boost your spirits. The rest of the effects for things like punches, jabs, and
grunts sounds like the ones out of the other GBA boxing games, and don’t get too
repetitive.

Game play

The console releases of Rocky contain a boxing engine that
is mostly simulation, but has a couple of arcade elements (such as fast pace
matches and opponents getting dazed for a few seconds) thrown in. The GBA
version takes an opposite approach with more strategy and tactics involved on
your part like the console versions of Knockout Kings. There aren’t any dazed
effects, and most matches last longer than the console versions of Rocky.

There are several different punches at your arsenal. You
can do light jabs with presses of A and B. Medium and heavy jabs are performed
by pressing a direction on the control pad or by combining a direction and
holding the R button with the A or B buttons. Dodge with the L button. I was
disappointed with the uppercut moves in Rocky, they aren’t as effective as its
console counterparts and they rarely connect against your opponent. Other than
that nasty flaw, the boxing engine is solid and can be learned in no time.

The main attraction of Rocky is movie mode. In this
feature, you’ll box a total of twenty brawlers, which span the length of all
five Rocky movies. It starts from the beginning in the chapel where you face
Spider Rico. You progress as you conquer Apollo, Clubber, Drago, and a bunch of
generic no-names. It ends with a battle against Tommy Gunn. Yes, you heard me
right. They both put on the gloves in this version, but there are no ring ropes
apparent, and you fight only one infinite round until one person is knocked out.

In between fights, Balboa will have to perform two training
sessions to improve his strength and other attributes. Sadly, there are only
three training games available (opposed to the five featured in the console
releases). Most of these are fun and challenging, and prove to be a nice break
between your heated battles. The training sessions consist of punching pads to
improve hand-eye coordination, seeing how long you can consistently punch the
speed bag, and how good you can punch the heavy bag. It’s too bad the sit ups
and jump rope training games from the console version couldn’t make their way in
here. They were very fun, but what’s offered here is satisfying enough.

Once you complete movie mode, the Knockout Tournament
option is unlocked. Imagine the King of the Ring tournament mode featured in
most WWF/WWE games, and that’s what you got here, which is an elimination
tournament with sixteen boxers. Unfortunately, there’s no sparring mode offered
like its console counterparts. Even though these controls are easy to adapt to,
a sparring session would’ve been nice to hone my skills, and get a nice strategy
going.

Replay Value

Movie mode will provide you with nearly ten hours of game
play. You have to complete it to unlock most of the boxers, cut scenes, and
venues in Rocky. The harder difficulty levels of the boxers will give you a run
for your money. Especially Tommy Gunn, that guy is extremely tough to beat! It
must be the power of the mullet. Knockout Tournament is also fun to play through
once or twice, if not only to unlock the remaining hidden boxers. Once you beat
this game and unlock everything, there really isn't any need to play it again,
unless you want to recreate the classic bouts from the movies.

I would’ve preferred if some create-a-boxer option was
included so all of us can create our own little versions of Balboa, but one
isn’t to be found to my disappointment. At least be thankful the developers
included compatibility with the link cable so we could challenge another owner
of this version of Rocky. It’s a shame there’s no single-pak link play or
Gamecube-to-GB Advance link cable compatibility. Just imagine the possibilities
if there were.

-: Lots of great features from the console version aren’t
here like two training games and sparring mode, no GCN-GBA link cable
compatibilities, where’s Thunderlips????

RATINGS

Graphics: 8.6
Sound: 7.2
Game play: 8.0
Replay Value: 6.1

Overall: 7.4

Comments

Rage did surprisingly good with the handheld version of
Rocky. Fans of the movie will eat this up, and the actual boxing engine is
pretty good too. There could’ve been a lot more features included to make this a
better game, but thankfully that’s where most of my gripes are. While Rocky does
have a good deal of flaws, it still manages to hold its own as one of the better
boxing titles the Game Boy Advance that any fan of the movies or boxing in
general should pick up.